Flashy Defense: When not wearing medium or heavy armor, a Dashing Swordsman adds 1 point of Charisma bonus (if any) per Dashing Swordsman class level to her Dexterity bonus to modify Armor Class while wielding a melee weapon. If a duelist is caught flat-footed or otherwise denied her Dexterity bonus, she also loses this bonus.

Flair: A dashing swordsman may make a flair check with a bonus equal to his dashing swordsman level plus his charisma bonus. The Dashing swordsmen may add half of his base ranks in Perform (Theatrics) to the roll. Dashing swordsmen may only make a number of flair checks per day equal to their charisma score plus 4.

Biting Banter: Dashing swordsmen are adept at using witty banter to distract and discourage opponents. While feinting, a dashing swordsman may make an attack with his attack bonus plus his charisma modifier. The swordsman may add his dashing swordsman level in addition to his Strength bonus to the damage he deals on that attack, this only works when the Dashing Swordsman hits a foe with a weapon to which you can apply the Weapon Finesse feat. Dashing swordsmen may only use this ability once per day per dashing swordsman level. Special: Even if the feinting does not succeed in causing a character to be Flat-Footed, they are still susceptible to the extra damage.

Heroic Heart: The Dashing Swordsman now receives a bonus equal to his Dashing Swordsman class levels on saves vs. any mind-affecting effect originating from an evil source.

Dramatic Entrance: Dashing Swordsman have incredible timing, and can arrive at a battle in the nick of time. They are given a surprise round upon entering the battle, upon a successful flair check. This gives them a bonus to their initiative on the 1st round of battle if they beat a flair check of 10 + the challenge CR. They gain an initiative bonus of +1 per 3 ranks in a skill which could be used for the entrance, such as climb, jump, or tumble.

Greater Flair (Ex): The Dashing Swordsman's Feinting Flair ability now adds his full ranks in Perform.
Fancy Footwork: When the Dashing Swordsman is fighting Multiple villains, he may make a Flair check instead of a tumble check for the purposes of moving through combat. Furthermore, he may attack while tumbling, and can move as if he had the Spring attack feat. This effect can be used at will.

Improvise (Ex):Using the Flair ability, The Dashing Swordsman may use any skill trick, even ones he does not know. However, he must have the prerequisites for it. The Dashing Swordsman may add his Charisma bonus to any prerequisite skills in order to qualify, and may use his Charisma bonus in place of the skill trick's normal key ability score, if it has one. This will use up one of the daily allowed Flair Checks. (Skill Tricks are part feat, part skill. They can be found in Complete Scoundrel.)

Thespianís Luck(Su): By using up one of your allotted flair abilities, the dashing swordsman can dodge unavoidable blows through sheer force of will and luck. As an immediate action, you may grant yourself a luck bonus to AC equal to your Cha modifier for a number of rounds equal to your Cha modifier.

Better Lucky Than Skilled (Su): At 10th level, Fate bestows her favors upon you. Once per day, you may choose to draw upon supernatural luck. For the number of rounds equal to your Charisma Modifier, whenever you make an attack roll, skill check, ability check, or saving throw, you may roll two dice, and choose which die roll to use. However, after using this ability, you become drained. You are exhausted, and cannot use any of the spell-like or supernatural class features of the Dashing Swordsman class until the end of the encounter.

Alright here is the work I have been compiling about the matter for some time now. I am hoping I can get some positive feedback on this draft. Is it over, or under powered? Are there any major balance issues? Things of that nature. I looked over the duelist and swashbuckler classes for the initial build then made some adjustments from there.

1. Flair needs to be clarified. I see down the list there are a few abilities that require a Flair roll, but the Flair ability itself doesn't actually state what it does. Just adding a line stating that it's used for abilities at later levels would clear up a lot of confusion. In addition, since there aren't any abilities that actually use a Flair roll until level 2 and it doesn't seem to have any use in and of itself, I don't see any reason to place it at level 1.

2. This sort of has to deal with Flair as well, but it's more about your entry requirements. 4 ranks in Perform is fine, but the Flair ability only recognizes Perform (Theatrics). If you're going to require a specific type of Perform skill to make any sort of use of a third of the abilities on the list, then you may as well place it in the entry requirements as well. On the other hand, you could just remove the specified type of Perform from the Flair ability. It's fine either way you decide to go, but it should be one way or the other so that there's a sense of consistency.

3. While Biting Banter sounds cool on paper, it doesn't take into account the sort of characters that will be taking this PrC. Since it's focused on finesseable weapons and high Dexterity, we're looking at characters with a lot of extra/precision damage to make up for the lack of Power Attack. Adding a feint-type ability to the class is useful for guaranteeing precision damage, but these characters also need to be able to make multiple attacks per round so their damage doesn't suck. I would suggest changing the entire abililty around. Instead of making it an "attack on feint attempt," make it a "feint on attack attempt." In other words, make it a free-action feint attempt every time the character attacks, capped at X number of attempts per day.

4. I don't see any reason why Heroic Heart needs to be limited to evil-only effects. I know it's part of the flavor, but this class can just as easily be used to create an evil character as a good one, and this class feature should work both ways.

5. Fancy Footwork has a few problems. First and foremost, it renders Tumble obsolete for its primary in-combat purpose, after being the skill with the highest ranks required for entry into the class. If this class ability is going to take the place of Tumble, your entry req.'s need to be shuffled around a bit to reflect the fact that performance is more important than dextrous gymnastics.

Secondly, "attack while tumbling" needs to be clarified. Can the character tumble and take a full attack, despite having used his Move Action to cross the field? Can he take one attack per tumble, limited to a number of attacks not exceeding those granted by his BAB? Is he restricted to an attack that can be made as a standard action, but can be taken during the tumble movement?

And thirdly, depending on how you rule the ability, adding Spring Attack becomes redundant. Again, we're looking at a class that precision-fighters are going to want to take, which means guaranteeing they can get in more than one attack per round, which makes Spring Attack pretty much useless (of course, Spring Attack is pretty much useless anyway, but that's beside the point).

I'd just like to add that I like the direction this class is going, I just think it needs some cleaning up.

@Greyfeld. I am reading your remarks and making adjustments as needed to the draft. Thanks! I will post them soon. :-)
@loveandwar I have been wanting to make something like this for some time but the builds i seen were way out of balance and overpowered in some cases. I had a friend of mine look at it, he is a by the book almost no exceptions kind of guy, and together we have been working on a build that is balanced and so that anyone could pick it up, show it to a DM and have something to play that is not going to break the game. :-) if it looks good i hope you try it and let me know :-D

MMMK so lets see if i got this all covered.
1. Added this to the description "The Dashing swordsman's key ability is presentation, if it looks good, then it works, at least for the Dashing swordsman. Whether in combat or in a social setting, the ability to add a flair to the situation can mean a victory or defeat. A flair roll can be used in place of a skill check roll, or otherwise for a specified class ability." So basically every so often, they can use flair to help them do something they can not normally do, but at a limit per day.

2. I thought I had changed them when I upload it but i guess it did not take. The requirements are sense motive, perform and bluff. Just perform by itself, I dont want to limit people as far as what they can come up with. I am a theatre major so i can come up with all sorts of stuff but thats just me, so i changed it to just perform. And I agree with the tumble requirements, that was just an accident.

4. I had it on my mind for a while to change the evil only requirement, I just wondered if it would be too strong with the fact that they get bonuses to will as a part of the progression, thoughts?

5. In my mind i would like to see it be like this," Adino, the Dashing swordsman, is faced with 7 goblins. Using his fancy foot work ability and a flair check, he moves past each goblin, making one attack per target." If that is the case then how do we balance? Number of foes per class level? Per ability score? BAB? Etc. I suppose something like the dervish dance would work here, Thoughts? We can Loose spring attack here too, thats seems redundant as you said.

Finally,
3. I was sort of confused on this part. But let me see if I understand it right. Make feint a free action, sort of like the invisible blade class, and then allow it as many times as the character has attempts (Chr bonus +4)? I do know that I would like to open it up to character who dont rely on precision based damage, but was not sure if that would fit, thoughts?

MMMK so lets see if i got this all covered.
1. Added this to the description "The Dashing swordsman's key ability is presentation, if it looks good, then it works, at least for the Dashing swordsman. Whether in combat or in a social setting, the ability to add a flair to the situation can mean a victory or defeat. A flair roll can be used in place of a skill check roll, or otherwise for a specified class ability." So basically every so often, they can use flair to help them do something they can not normally do, but at a limit per day.

I like it. Though, I would consider restricting it a bit. Maybe only to skills on the class skill list. It seems like it would be silly to be able to say, use Flair to replace a Knowledge check, or suddenly become an expert in Iaijutsu.

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Originally Posted by Sabasteonshane

2. I thought I had changed them when I upload it but i guess it did not take. The requirements are sense motive, perform and bluff. Just perform by itself, I dont want to limit people as far as what they can come up with. I am a theatre major so i can come up with all sorts of stuff but thats just me, so i changed it to just perform. And I agree with the tumble requirements, that was just an accident.

Sounds good.

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Originally Posted by Sabasteonshane

4. I had it on my mind for a while to change the evil only requirement, I just wondered if it would be too strong with the fact that they get bonuses to will as a part of the progression, thoughts?

Since it's only mind-effecting effects, I think it's fine to expand it to all effects. But you should probably lower the number to 1/2 class level (which means it maxes out at +5), especially since you're giving the class a good Will save.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabasteonshane

5. In my mind i would like to see it be like this," Adino, the Dashing swordsman, is faced with 7 goblins. Using his fancy foot work ability and a flair check, he moves past each goblin, making one attack per target." If that is the case then how do we balance? Number of foes per class level? Per ability score? BAB? Etc. I suppose something like the dervish dance would work here, Thoughts? We can Loose spring attack here too, thats seems redundant as you said.

I was actually thinking of the Dervish ability, myself. I was thinking something along the lines of, "The Dashing Swordsman tumbles at full speed, provoking no attacks of opportunity while doing so. At any point during the tumble, the swordsman may make one attack with his melee weapon at a -4 penalty against a target that is in range. For every 5 points he beats the tumble DC by, the attack penalty is reduced by 1 (to a minimum of zero). He may continue moving after the tumble has ended as long as he has not moved his maximum move speed this turn. The Dashing Swordsman may attack using this ability a number of times per round equal to the number of attacks he receives from his BAB."

Of course, you don't have to do it exactly this way, and the wording could probably use some polishing; but this way, you're limited to a number of times per round you can use it (as well as being limited by distance), but it also gives the player a way to get multiple attacks per round when they're not right next to their target, and it gives them a reason to keep investing in the Tumble skill, instead of stopping at 14 points.

This is just an idea, mind you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabasteonshane

3. I was sort of confused on this part. But let me see if I understand it right. Make feint a free action, sort of like the invisible blade class, and then allow it as many times as the character has attempts (Chr bonus +4)? I do know that I would like to open it up to character who dont rely on precision based damage, but was not sure if that would fit, thoughts?

Well, feinting has two benefits:

1. It makes the target flat-footed, lowering their AC.
2. It makes the target flat-footed, opening them up to sneak attack damage.

Unfortunately, feint is about worthless, because it's a standard action to use, and it only lasts for 1 attack. That's not even taking into consideration that anything nonhumanoid or of animal intelligence imposes a penalty to your roll (and nonintelligent creatures are completely immune to the effect). So to make the ability worth it, we have to alleviate some of those problems. The easiest way to do that is to make it spammable.

So the general idea is something like this: "When the Dashing Swordsman declares an attack, but before the attack roll, he may feint as a free action. He may only use Biting Banter a number of times per day equal to his Charisma Modifier + 1/2 his Dashing Swordsman class level." This allows the player to force a chain flat-footed attacks at any time, though only gives them a certain allotment so they can't rely on doing it every single round.

1. What about cross class or multi class skills? So like I have a rogue who is trained to pick locks or search, but as soon as he takes levels in dashing, should it already be limited to just the Dashing skill set? I was thinking that if they have some training in it than Flair could apply to it. Thoughts?

4. Given that it is a combat class, should the Will and Fort be changed? I was toying with that idea in earlier drafts.

5. That sounds good, I am going to play around with that and refresh the dervish dance as well and then put it to paper... err pixels to a computer screen.

3. Ok now i get it. My friend was telling me that uncanny dodge would stop the sneak attack damage, but I chose to clarify that it would not in the case of this feat. So even though the monster, NPC, etc. does not loose its dex to ac it still takes the extra damage if hit by this ability. I had thought that feinting as a free action was a bit over powered but I believe that since it is a book already as a invisible blade class feature its worth revisiting.
P.S. Just added this to Biting Banter. I like the charisma and class level adjustment, thoughts?
Dashing swordsmen may only use this ability once a number of times equal to his Charisma Modifier plus half his dashing swordsman level per day. At Level 6, the Dashing swordsman has become so witty that he may feint as a free action.

1. What about cross class or multi class skills? So like I have a rogue who is trained to pick locks or search, but as soon as he takes levels in dashing, should it already be limited to just the Dashing skill set? I was thinking that if they have some training in it than Flair could apply to it. Thoughts?

It seems to me like "flair" should be limited to anything to which you can feasibly use your charm/wit/theatrics to "dazzle" somebody into ignoring your apparent lack of skill in a certain situation. So while I think it's safe to use in bluff/diplomacy checks, or even tumble or gather information, it's a little more difficult for me to see how it would influence other more mechanically-inclined skills like Climb, Swim, Pick Lock, Disable Device, Appraise, etc etc. I'm not entirely sure how you could word it, short of cherry picking the skills it applies to, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to get at.

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4. Given that it is a combat class, should the Will and Fort be changed? I was toying with that idea in earlier drafts.

Fort tends to apply to resisting poison/disease and other physical ailments, while Will is about resisting mental and spiritual attacks. If you're going to choose one or the other, Will would definitely be it. Though admittedly, I could just as easily see this class going with bad/good/bad saves.

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3. Ok now i get it. My friend was telling me that uncanny dodge would stop the sneak attack damage, but I chose to clarify that it would not in the case of this feat. So even though the monster, NPC, etc. does not loose its dex to ac it still takes the extra damage if hit by this ability. I had thought that feinting as a free action was a bit over powered but I believe that since it is a book already as a invisible blade class feature its worth revisiting.

He's right, Uncanny Dodge would negate the effect of being flat-footed from a feint. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure if allowing this ability to bypass that feature would be balanced or not. Hopefully somebody else can chime in on that.